1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the use of computer systems to facilitate the recommendation of goods or services utilizing a distributed network such as the Internet, specifically to provide recommendations of goods or services that may be of interest to potential customers based on a potential customer's selection of goods or services and a database of previous customer history with respect to the selected goods or services.
2. Description of the Background Art
Providing recommendations of goods or services of interest to customers in a computer system environment has been based on demographic profiles and usually requires extensive customer participation and divulgence of personal information (for example, the input of: age, profession, hobbies, gender, . . . . ) to create a user profile, which is then compared against other user profiles to determine possible items of interest to the user. The need for extensive customer input limits the appeal of these feedback systems because they require the user to expend substantial time and effort in addition to revealing personal details in order to obtain the requested information.
The present invention allows potential customers to utilize a computer system interfaced with a distributed network to obtain recommendations of goods or services that may be of interest to them while substantially reducing the degree of customer input required in comparison to prior art systems. Instead of relying on the personal information provided by each potential customer as a basis for determining recommendations, the subject invention utilizes a customer activity history database to facilitate the determination of recommendations.